Sunday afternoon exercises


Here’s your course of action. First, tune up your brain with Encephalon #25. Feeling smart now?

Next, browse The Carnival of the Godless #69. Now you’re smart and aggressively, skeptically godless. Sharp as a knife.

Now you’re ready to read Revere’s Sunday Sermonette. You will be entertained. It’s an account of a Georgia pastor wrestling with theodicy, and he refreshingly concludes that a) yes, god is screwing with you and making you suffer, and b) his explanation is that god is making sure you don’t forget him. God is a petty tyrant who torments you to remind you that he exists.

You should be feeling pretty cocky at this point. These theological arguments are so silly and shallow and superficial, and you can just slice right through them.

Unfortunately, Greg Laden is going to slime you with a loogey gun next. Watching Michele Bachmann talk about god is agonizing—god was apparently “focused like a laser beam” on her congressional race; the omnipotent omniscient ruler of the entire universe thought a political contest in a small Minneapolis suburb was the most important event in the whole cosmos, and was personally wielding his vast power to get a babbling boob into office.

Hah. What good does all your brain power and reason and logic do against that, I ask you? If there were a god, Michele Bachmann would be evidence that he is evil and he is screwing with us.

Comments

  1. llewelly says

    Perhaps the most depressing aspect of politics over the last 8 years or so has been that gives the distinct impression that there is a god – a cruel, stupid, vicious, and not quite omnipotent god.
    Fortunately, what we know of human nature explains events better.

  2. Paguroidea says

    Greg and his loogey gun strike again! It definitely makes me feel unclean after a visit to his blog. I’m sure glad I’m not in Bachmann’s district.

  3. Science Goddess says

    I particularly liked the transitional fossils analogies. Very apt. I plan to use them in my BIO 101 class when slapped with ID students.

    SG

  4. Arnaud says

    And that voice! That syrupy, infant-school-teacherly voice!
    I didn’t know pre-teen kids could vote in Minnesotta…

  5. David Marjanović says

    If there were a god, Michele Bachmann would be evidence that he is evil and he is screwing with us.

    FOOL! If only you knew the power of the Dark Side.

  6. David Marjanović says

    If there were a god, Michele Bachmann would be evidence that he is evil and he is screwing with us.

    FOOL! If only you knew the power of the Dark Side.

  7. Sonja says

    OK, so God may not hate the world, but no doubt he hates Minnesota’s 6th CD. If you’ve ever visited a Blaine trailor park, you wouldn’t be surprised.

  8. MpM says

    Yikes, I’m angry watching that idiot feed pablum to her fellow idiots. A vote for her will deal with “Radical Islam”.
    Great!!! I always wanted to see Yahweh duke it out with Allah!

    F’n morons are wasting my oxygen – and I want it back.

  9. Azkyroth says

    babbling boob

    Um, shouldn’t somewhat be chastizing PZ for “sexism” and supposedly feeling the need to “put women in their place” right about now? *eyeroll*

  10. MpM says

    Boob does not denote gender. He can be a boob, as much as she can be a boob.
    As opposed to the vulgar use of boob as a woman’s breast, in which case it is “boobs” (both of them).

    Your mind must be on boobs.

  11. Epistaxis says

    to get a babbling boob into office

    Katherine Harris would have made it two.

  12. Sc says

    Where does such talent come from?

    Akiane Poetry and Painting Genius(A binary prodigy. Now 12 years old)

    http://artakiane.com./home.htm

    Akiane’s amazing Art work is estimated in millions

    Akiane who met God at the age of 3

    http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/2004/004/7.24.html

    “When asked how she knows that it’s God who is speaking to her, she replies, “Because I can hear His voice. His voice is quiet and beautiful.” Although she was 3 at the time, she’ll always remember God’s first message to her. “He said, ‘You have to do this, and I’ll help you.’ He said, ‘Now you can help people.’ I said, ‘Yes, I will.’ But I said it in different words in my mind. I speak through my mind to Him.”

    Akiane on her website:

    “I have been blessed by God. And if I’m blessed, there is one reason and one reason only, and that is to help others”

    “I want my art to draw people’s attention to God, and I want my poetry to keep people’s attention to God.”

    —brain washed maybe. She is earning million though painting, writing poetry and sharing her visions and helping the poor.

  13. Sc says

    More here:

    Akiane Kramarik-Inspired By God Or Just Plain Crazy?

    “Recently on CNN I caught a video showcasing the story of a very gifted 12-years-old artist named Akiane Kramarik. There have been several young artists in the past, but I find Akiane rather unique.

    What makes Akiane so fascinating is not so much how well she paints, but rather the subject of her work and her inspiration. Akiane claims to have met God when she was just 3. He told her that she needs to paint and help the less fortunate. He also noted that he’d be there to guide her along the way.

    It gets more bizarre when you discover that her mother is an Atheist and her father a recovering Catholic. Religion was never discussed in the house and the kids are all home schooled.

    Before you write her off as a freak, watch the report below, read this, and take a look at her art.”

  14. Sonja says

    I was a good artist as a young person too. It was an intellectual process for me, but I remember the exact “aha” moment I figured it out. I was an average 8-year old artist and, looking at a small glass horse one day, I noticed all the reflections and colors in the glass and I thought, “what if I drew all those reflections and shadows too?” That exercize allowed me to see the world in 2-dimensions and to draw exactly what I saw, instead of what I thought I saw. The next day, I taught my friends this “trick” and we grew up to all be the best artists in highschool. So although my parents would talk about my talent coming from God, I knew it was something that I figured out myself and could explain and even teach. I was an atheist by the age of 13.

    Age 13: Horse